


The Tale Jealousy Tells

by FleetofShippyShips



Series: Prompted Spirk Works [5]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Mind Meld, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 00:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12876312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetofShippyShips/pseuds/FleetofShippyShips
Summary: Prompt:“Forgive me Jim but I must ask you to repeat yourself. It sounded like you said the Ambassador initiated a mind meld with you.”“Oh yeah, sure, couple of times.”





	The Tale Jealousy Tells

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by jesreally.

“Forgive me, Jim, but I must ask you to repeat yourself. It sounded like you said the Ambassador initiated a mind meld with you.”

Jim turned and looked up at Spock, his brow crinkling into a frown. “Oh yeah, sure. A couple of times,” he said, wishing Spock would relax and sit down. It was hard to really end his shift until Spock did these days, and with him standing there, ramrod straight, and wearing that tense expression that said he was uncomfortable, it was hard for Jim to relax. “Didn’t I tell you that already?”

“I assure you, you did not.” Spock’s tone seemed several shades cooler, and Jim’s frown deepened. He was upset. They’d grown close enough now that Jim could recognise it.

“Why does that upset you?” he asked bluntly. It had been a long shift, and he did not feel like drawing this out with the usual sensitivity around Spock’s unexpected displays of emotion. Even more so when they were of a kind he’d deny he was having.

“I am not upset. I am merely trying to ascertain the facts.”

“Bullshit,” Jim said, standing again with a groan. 

He’d been looking forward to their chess game for the last two hours of that awful shift. Even if he was mentally and physically exhausted, chess with Spock always relaxed him. Mostly just being around Spock relaxed him, really, unless they were in a life-threatening situation. Although… even then, Spock’s presence calmed him, in a way.

“I have asked you not to mention the faeces of—”

“Spock, please,” Jim interrupted. “What’s wrong? We’re off shift. Please, sit down.”

Spock’s left eyebrow twitched. Annoyance. Jim sighed, and sat down again himself. It had to be about the Ambassador. They hadn’t been talking about anything else even remotely sensitive. Jim had just said something that Spock didn’t think he should know, Jim had only guessed it was from a meld then, since he couldn’t recall how he knew the information either. It didn’t even seem important.

“If you’re worried about some universe threatening consequences of a meld with your alternate self, then—”

“I’m not worried about anything. I was merely—”

“Ascertaining the facts,” Jim finished for him, rubbing his face and groaning again. Whatever it was, it was serious. Spock usually relaxed at least a little at the end of shift these days, and he wasn’t usually so sensitive about Jim’s choice of curse words. Or at least, if he made comments about them, they were wry, not irritated.

“It appears you are the one who is upset, Captain,” Spock said stiffly.

Jim shot him a glare. “I am now you’ve called me captain off-shift,” he said quickly. “We’ve talked about that.”

Spock averted his eyes, and looked about the room. “Using first names implies a sort of emotional intimacy that—”

Jim cut him off with a loud groan. It was like they’d moved two months backwards. Over what? Jim continuing to talk to the Ambassador? 

“You can give that up,” he said shortly. “I know from the Ambassador that you do feel emotion, so don’t even try pretending that you don’t. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Spock’s nostrils flared, but his expression didn’t otherwise change. Anger. Well, that was something, Jim supposed.

“The Ambassador is not me,” Spock said, with as much vehemence as his attempt at neutrality allowed, which wasn’t much, but enough for Jim to notice it as such.

Standing back up again, since Spock clearly wasn’t going to sit down, Jim approached him slowly.

“No, he’s an older, alternate version of you that has lived a very different life,” he said, coming to a standstill close enough to reach out and touch Spock, but far enough that he at least appeared to be respecting personal space. “And he’s all alone in a universe full of younger, different versions of people he used to know. If I can help him feel less alone, then I am going to.”

Spock’s jaw seemed to clench, and then relax, but he didn’t speak. Jim raised an eyebrow and waited. He knew this game. He’d hit a nerve, now all he had to do was wait it out.

“That doesn’t require a meld,” Spock finally said.

Movement caught Jim’s eye as he opened his mouth to reply, and he looked down to see Spock had curled his hands into fists. The realisation hit him at once.

The problem wasn’t the Ambassador. It was the meld.

Looking back up, and meeting Spock’s hard gaze, he wasn’t quite sure how to handle that information. Sometimes he still had difficulty separating it in his head. The reality of his professional relationship with this Spock, and the far deeper, romantic one that his alternate self had had with the other Spock.

It had been that confusion, and the frequent bursts of unfamiliar images close to falling asleep, or right after waking, that had caused him to reach out to the Ambassador again. After another meld to stabilise the accidental memory transfer, feeling the Ambassador’s loneliness had been all it took for Jim to visit or call him when he could.

But all that made this situation far more sensitive. He knew everything about how an alternate version of Spock felt about him and his alternate self. But he did not know how this Spock felt, about anything. No more than he could guess, at least.

If the problem was the meld, there could be many reasons. But there was only one reason he wanted it to be.

“Are you jealous, Spock?” he asked, forcing his body to remain relaxed, and not give away how he felt about the idea.

Spock’s nostrils flared again. “Jealousy is illogical.”

“It is also a perfectly natural response to seeing someone else doing something you want to do,” Jim said, taking a risk. In all likelihood, it had nothing to do with jealousy. But better to rule that out first, before tackling the more complicated variety of reasons that could be behind Spock’s reaction.

There was further clenching of Spock’s jaw, and tightening of those curled fists. Jim had hit another nerve, and it felt like a tremor passed through him at the realisation. Could it really be possible? That in another universe, Spock might feel the same way about his captain as the other one had?

“If you have questions about the nature of the meld, you can ask,” Jim said, fighting the urge to step closer, fighting to keep his posture relaxed, and his expression free from the excitement he was starting to feel.

Spock’s posture seemed to stiffen further. “A meld is a highly personal and private experience. To inquire about what was shared is a great insult, and breach of social etiquette. Furthermore, it is none of my concern, nor do I care, what you shared with him.”

The order in which he said those things was more telling than the way his fists seemed to clench tighter. Jim wished for a moment that this was the other Spock. With him, talking about emotion was easy. He wasn’t so afraid of it, although he had been at one point in his life.

“Well, I’m sure he would not mind you knowing,” Jim said lightly, risking one step closer. “He shares his memories with me. The first meld shared them unintentionally, and they were causing me some trouble, so the second was to fix that.”

Spock’s nostrils flared again. “Emotion and memory transference.”

“Indeed,” Jim agreed. “After that, he would tell me stories about his universe, and his version of the crew and Enterprise. If I was there in person, it was just easier to show me, and I didn’t mind seeing.”

“You…”

Jim waited, but Spock didn’t finish his thought. His brows were now furrowed in a clear display of confusion. It only made Jim’s heart race. Spock’s reaction was so unexpected. It had to be jealously. It had to be that he disliked the idea of another Vulcan sharing something intimate with Jim, even if it was another version of himself. Or maybe  _ because _ it was another version of himself.

Perhaps that was still wishful thinking, but it made Jim feel braver.

“It was a pleasant experience,” Jim said softly. “Being in the meld with him as he shared stories with me. It made me appreciate how lonely he really is now, and it’s why I talk to him whenever I can, even if only through a recorded message. He’s lost so much.”

Spock looked to the side, and his jaw clenched again. Jim took another step closer, his heart in his throat.

“Why is that a problem for you, Spock?” he asked.

“It is not a problem.”

Jim snorted softly. He was surprised Spock bothered to lie. His posture was giving him away. His fisted hands, his clenched jaw. The slight furrow to his brow. Or maybe he was so lost in trying to repress everything, that didn’t realise he was doing all that.

“I don’t know,” Jim said, taking another step, until they were almost touching. The fact Spock hadn’t moved back made his palms sweat. “I can think of one problem with it.”

Spock turned look at him, his eyes widening as if he was only now noticing the proximity. “What is that?”

Jim exhaled slowly, and then inhaled just as slowly. He was a brave man, but this was terrifying. “It’s given me an overwhelming desire to know the inside of  _ your  _ mind,” he said softly. “I would rather meld with you, not him, in the end.”

For eight seconds, Spock didn’t breathe, and then he inhaled sharply. “You are playing some kind of human joke on me.”

Jim laughed softly. “No, Spock. The joke is on me, for wanting what I can’t have, right?” He met Spock’s gaze, and held it.

Spock stared back, his gaze penetrating and serious. After a moment, he lifted one hand, fingers spread, and held it near Jim’s face. But he didn’t touch him.

“If you are bluffing, you will only come to regret it,” Spock said softly, in a low, serious tone. “An unwilling meld is a painful experience.”

Jim held his gaze. If Spock initiated a meld, he’d see everything. Jim was only human, he couldn’t control his end of a meld. Spock would know that Jim had seen far too much of that alternate universe. That he had seen far too much of a very different relationship between a very different Jim and Spock. That he had been confused, and lost. That he had even doubted that his own growing feelings for Spock were real, and not some kind of transference from the melds. 

But then he’d also see the certainty Jim now had that they were not any kind of transference, but his own feelings, based on  _ their _ experiences, and not visions of an alternate life.

It was terrifying, to be laid so bare before another person.

But it was  _ Spock _ . And he’d wanted this more and more with each new meld he had shared with the Ambassador. He had wanted to know  _ his _ Spock. And he wanted his Spock to know him.

“Do it,” he said softly.

Spock’s fingers touched his face, sliding into place, but still their minds didn’t join. 

Jim slid his hand over Spock’s. “Please?”

That seemed to be what Spock was waiting for. Closing his eyes, he initiated the meld.

Jim smiled as he felt the familiar, yet different, sensation of Spock entering his mind.  _ His _ Spock at last.

**Author's Note:**

> Been feeling so insecure about writing them again, I didn't think I'd be able to so soon, but I dunno, it just happened, and I went with it =)


End file.
